In recent years, in solid-state imaging devices, size reduction of pixels has been advanced along with the increase in number of pixels. Under such circumstances, the generation of a portion lacking a digital image signal due to a pixel not functioning normally (the portion is hereinafter referred to as “defect”) in a solid-state imaging device has been viewed as a problem. A product with pixel defects more than defined in the inspection standard in a fault inspection in the manufacture of solid-state imaging devices is treated as a defective product. As this standard is stricter, the yield of solid-state imaging devices is deteriorated and the manufacturing cost is increased. In view of this, in the conventional solid-state imaging device, a method of making the defect less visible by signal processing in a defect correcting circuit has been positively employed.
The defect correcting circuit judges whether a target pixel, which is the target of the defect correction, is the defect or not by comparing a signal of the target pixel and signals of peripheral pixels around the target pixel. For judging whether the target pixel is the defect or not, for example, a defect correcting circuit using a signal of a peripheral pixel located on a line including the target pixel and a signal of a peripheral pixel located on a line before or after the line has been known. The peripheral pixel is, for example, a pixel for the same color as the target pixel.
For example, in the case where a picture component present in a subject is formed across the target pixel and the peripheral pixel, for example at the outline of an object or the boarder where the luminance changes, the defect may be misjudged depending on the position or the range of the picture component. As the accuracy of the defect judgment is easily decreased due to the presence of the picture component, the deterioration in image quality due to the erroneous defect correction becomes problematic.